Columnist Clare Palo discusses the sexism inherent in tech and digital-related jobs.
It’s increasingly becoming a common conversation in the modern work world — women in the tech industry are experiencing sexism and sexual harassment in their tech or digital-related jobs. A recent Elephant in the Valley Survey, inspired by the Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins trial, uncovers that the majority of women in tech have been sexually harassed or been a victim to sexism at work.
The survey asked more than 200 women in tech, with at least 10 years worth of experience, living in the Silicon Valley area, about how they were treated in the workplace.
The most alarming statistics revealed 60 percent of the women said they had dealt with unwanted sexual advances from a coworker, and 87 percent have received a demeaning comment from male colleagues. The survey showed 90 percent witnessed sexist behavior at company or industry conferences.
I’d be lying if I said I was surprised by these survey results. The survey may be shocking for women who don’t work in a tech-related environment or consistently deal with sexism in digitally related fields, but unfortunately, it’s all too familiar for me.
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In a Women in the Media class I recently completed, my professor pointed out that every time a group went to present, the only guy in each group took the lead and hogged the PowerPoint presentation. She used us as her own experiment to physically show us that women seem to be more timid when it comes to technology in the classroom, and in workplaces.
Does one survey and a sly psychological experiment prove that sexism exists in the tech world? Not necessarily, but it does show that there’s a problem: an elephant in the room, you could say.
Working in digital-based positions, I am privy to sexual harassment and sexism on a regular basis. I personally have experienced sexual harassment by my male colleagues and have been left out of important and key work decisions, which I took as sexist and insulting. Just recently, I felt my opinion wasn’t valid because I was a woman.
I have had one woman superior who often was painted as aggressive, rude and mean when she pushed back on digital decisions at work. All of my other male colleagues were, and are, never portrayed as such.
People display a look of surprise when they learn I want to break into the tech and digital field, but never have the same reaction for my male peers — it’s apparently an innate quality for men to be interested in the Internet but not for women. The world wants more women in STEM fields, but how do they expect us to progress when we are discouraged and devalued?
Some would say as more women enter the tech field this problem will disappear, but I say let’s do something about it now. Push back when you feel you’re being treated differently simply because of your gender, or not taken seriously because you weren’t blessed with a y chromosome. It’s a systemic issue that can be solved if we all think critically about this issue in our own lives.
Clare Palo is a senior studying journalism and digital content director for The Post. Tweet her @clarepalo or email her at cp954211@ohio.edu.
